| |
Corps Trips
One of the ways that the Corps of Cadets
at A&M merits the title, "Keepers of the Spirit
of Aggieland" is their uniformed presence at all
home football games. That presence starts with a "march-in",
in which the Aggie Band takes its place in the East
stands and plays while the rest of the Corps marches
into Kyle Field, counter-clockwise around the track,
past a reviewing stand set up at the bottom of the West
stands, and dismisses into the East stands. Cadets'
seats are in a single area of those stands (known as
"Corps block"), with only their guests to
break up the sea of uniforms. Corps Staff leads the
procession, and after it passes the reviewing stand,
the Corps Commander turns command of the staff over
to the Deputy, and joins the reviewing party. Every
other march-in, the Army units would go first; the next
march-in, Air Force units would lead. After the establishment
of Parsons Mounted Cavalry, that unit always went last,
since the horses tended to leave "souvenirs"
on the track that had to be cleaned up by a crew of
first-year members.
The "march-in" is a required
Corps formation, and the marching and uniforms of each
unit are graded. In our time at A&M, it was expected
that every cadet attend the game until the final post-game
tradition was complete. Now, attendance at the game
after the march-in for the Corps is optional.
Although individual cadets attended most
out-of-town football games on their own, the entire
Corps made the trip to two "away" games each
season. Every other year (such as our fish
and sergebutt
years), the A&M-tu game was in Austin, and that
was always one of the Corps trips that year. The other
trip those years was to Dallas, home of SMU. In the
years that the A&M-tu game was in Kyle Field (such
as our pisshead
and zip
years), the two Corps trips were to Houston for the
Rice game, and Fort Worth for the TCU game. The schedule
was arranged such that we didn't make a Corps trip to
the same city two years in a row.
A Corps trip officially included two events
- a parade down the most prominent street in town, which
was a required Corps formation, and attendance at the
game, which was optional. The parade was equivalent
to a Kyle Field march-in, since there was a reviewing
stand, and the marching and uniforms of each unit were
graded. There was one major difference, however - after
Corps Staff, the Aggie Band came next. After they passed
the reviewing stand, they took up a stationary position
on the parade route and played while the rest of the
units passed. That made for a situation unique to other
occasions when the Corps marched - since the parade
was always downtown, where there were a lot of buildings
for sound to bounce off of, it was difficult to keep
in step with the Band's cadence until a unit was very
close to the reviewing stand. The First Sergeant had
to strain his ears to keep the unit in step with the
real beat of the Band, and not with one of the many
echoes. In some cities, it was comical to watch units
do several successive "change-steps" as they
approached the reviewing stand, giving the appearance
that they were skipping instead of marching.
Another difference between a Kyle Field
march-in and a Corps trip parade was the attempt at
uniform "pull-outs"at
parades. fish classes in an outfit sometimes decided
that they would all wear a nametag that said "Pisshead."
Pissheads might wear a white belt underneath their Class-A
blouses, or wear sunglasses. Sergebutts might wear AMC
or "shaved" brass, which was officially verboten,
or a fart-off nametag (see the Fart-Offs memory.) Air
Force zips were known to put an Army Air Corps "50-mission
crush" in their "wheel-hats." The creativity
was endless. Of course, as usual there were two kinds
of consequences to getting caught at these pull-outs
- if the Bulls
grading the outfit noticed, the cadet could get rammed
and the outfit could be downgraded, jeopardizing their
chances for outfit awards at the end of the year; violation
of class privilege could result in crap-outs the next
week (see the Corps
Discipline and
Crap-Outs memories.)
Corps Trips also included three unofficial
events - dates with the local women (see the Getting
Moosed memory), crashing in with the families of
cadets from that city, and organized and unorganized
parties.
Aggies aren't the richest students in
Texas, and they are always looking for ways to conserve
their cash for the important things (women, booze, and
I can't remember any other priorities.) So cadets who
lived in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, and Houston
areas invited as many of their buds as their parents
would allow to sleep at their homes during Corps trips.
It wasn't unusual for there to be up to 20 cadets sleeping
on the floor and furniture. Some Moms even tried to
feed them - they always became serious candidates for
Aggie Mother of the Year (see the Ruth
Hunt memory.)
Unorganized parties usually happened on
Friday night, and were arranged among a couple of cadets
and their dates, up to the entire class of an outfit.
Official parties, on the other hand, took place on Saturday
night, and were serious businesses, involving a place
the size of a Convention Center, multiple live bands,
set-up concessions, and rent-a-cops.
The latter two made for a vivid memory
from our fish-year SMU Corps trip. Although I was only
18, I, like a large majority of my buds, had managed
to "score" a bag full of alcoholic beverages.
I was between the inner and outer doors of the Dallas
Convention Center when I noticed a uniformed policeman
checking bags of people entering the inner doors. I
knew that if I made a quick U-turn and ran, he'd know
I had something to hide, and would chase me down and
arrest me for "MIP" (Minor In Possession.)
So I decided to take it like a man, and just walk up
to him. He looked in my bag as I tried to keep my shaking
knees from sending me to the floor, and waved me inside!
It turns out that, since set-ups were being sold inside,
that you couldn't bring in things like soft drinks,
and that's what security was checking. And since the
cop was technically "off-duty", he ignored
the potential MIP. After that experience, I needed a
drink, and, lucky for me, I just happened to have a
bag full to choose from!
Another thing I remember about that Corps
trip party was the sheer pandemonium. The noise was
deafening, and it didn't take long for there to be Aggies
and their dates passed out everywhere. The tables were
piled high with bottles, some empty, some still full.
I managed to stay pretty much sober, so when the party
wound down, I offered a ride home to a "sweet young
thing" whose date was comatose, harvested several
bottles of booze off a table that had been abandoned,
and headed out into the night. I wished the SWT hadn't
had such a sense of loyalty to her date that weekend
- she decided she had to go to the game with him, and
the blind date I had (arranged by Buzzy's sister) was
a Moose!
John (Yankus) Yantis
*********************************************************
I don' rmember which year it was but who
can forget the Corps party at the Tarrant County Convention
Center, probably our pisshead year. Rumor has it that
the Corps was banned from ever using it again after
that event...and for good reason. I don't remember any
of the details (because I was probably one of the contributors)
but apparently the floors in the men's restrooms were
covered with the puke from sick Aggies. And, of course,
that was tracked all over the place by those leaving
the facilities.
The purpose of the Corps parties was to
keep drunk Aggies from partying all over town and becoming
a menace to all decent folks. But, there was not a sober
person leave that building (and there were hundreds,
maybe a couple of thousand of us) and we made for a
far greater menace on our collective ways home.
Tom (TE) Schoolcraft
|
|